I suppose it would have been quaint, had she not been quite so much in earnest.

She examined herself in the long mirror most conscientiously, and with a determinedly open mind, to see whether she was too ugly for any man to love.

Our beautiful Grizel really did.
She had always thought that she was a nice girl, but was she?
No one had ever loved her, except the old doctor, and he began when she was so young that perhaps he had been inveigled into it, like a father.
Even David had not loved her.

Was it because he knew her so well?
What was it in women that made men love them?
She asked it of David in such a way that he never knew she was putting him to the question.

He merely thought that he and she were having a pleasant chat about Elspeth, and, as a result, she decided that he loved Elspeth because she was so helpless.